________________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/http://ainfos.ca/index24.html
________________________________________________
>From Rebel Worker <rworker@chaos.apana.org.au>
30/11/2002 Review of "Facing The Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organisation"
Facing The Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organisation from Proudhon to May
1968, by Alexandre Skirda, published by AK Press, Price; Jura Books: $26.
From Rebel Worker Vol.21 No.5 (179) Nov.-Dec.2002
Paper of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Network. Subs: $12 pa in Australia
and overseas airmail $25 pa.
The Labyrinth of the Left Subculture
A common tendency in much of the English speaking anarchist milieux in
recent years has been its transformation from largely subcultures to
congeries of sects. Self absorbed groupings often unconsciously
influenced by the elitism and vanguardism of the surrounding left
subculture, heavily influenced by the Leninist/Stalinist legacies. The
recent mushrooming in North America of various Anarchist Communist
Federations is the latest expression of this tendency. Certainly these
groupings appear to have strong tendencies to becoming sects. Their
&#8220;anarchist communist&#8221; ideology being essentially a theology. Whilst their
practice is heavily informed by the particularly exotic left sub cultural
codes of behaviour predominant in North America a fascination with
identity politics, an unquenchable thirst for participation in
anti-globalist protest spectacles, an unwholesome attraction to navel
gazing organisational formalities eg gender dynamics and involvement in all
manner of causes/issues fashionable in the leftist milieu. Currently, they
certainly lack any strategy and the associated long term program of work
which would be decisive in assisting the emergence of an alternative
revolutionary labour movement in North America.Involving the prioritising
of long term work in strategic industries. Apart from these hazards of the
left subculture in precluding within these groupings the flourishing of a
climate favourable for scientific analysis and debate necessary for the
developing an effective strategy, the basis of these formations being
&#8220;affinity groups&#8221; is also likely to be an obstructive factor. Given
personal loyalties which feature so much in such groups being likely to get
in the way of rational analysis and discussion.
An important explanation of the dysfunctional character of these
groupings formally anarchist &#8220;organisations&#8221; but in fact lost in the
leftist jungle of micro vanguard parties must be seen as the absence of
generations of militant anarchist workers who could transmit anarchism as a
revolutionary practice within the class struggle. Due to the rise of
Fascism and Stalinism in the 20th Century and dictatorships and waves of
state repression combined with ever tightening labour legislation and the
development of Welfare States/Social Democratic Unionism which destroyed
and marginalised anarcho-syndicalist labour movements throughout the world.
The book under review is basically a survey of the quest for explicit
anarchist organisation with particular reference to Europe and France, in
particular. The author&#8217;s discussion of this quest does throw important
light on the particularly malicious phenomena of the &#8220;left subculture&#8221;
which today poses such a serious threat to international anarchism and the
workers control project.
Following a brief discussion of the anti-social individualism of Max
Stirner and the mutualist individualism of Pierre Proudhon, the author
proceeds to look at the Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin&#8217;s contribution to
anarchist organisation, particular his programs for the &#8220;Alliance of Social
Democracy&#8221; and the &#8220;International Brotherhood&#8221;. The former
was to draw as many labour organisations into the International Working Men's
Association(IWMA) so that the Alliance's work &#8220;may be confined to the
political and revolutionary development of said Association&#8221;. The latter
was to prepare for the revolution and substitute its strictly concerted and
covert collective action for &#8220;any government or formal dictatorship&#8230;&#8230;which
is to say a new bourgeois rule. It was to act as an unseen general
staff&#8221;. A sort of dictatorship by the clandestine anarchist party which
Bakunin thought necessary given his lack of consideration of such
political structures as workers and community councils. A concept, likely
to be influenced by Blanquism with its conspiratorial elitist
schemes which contradicts basic anarchist principles which the author
has no problems.
The author proceeds to a discussion of the conflict between the Marxist and
Bakuninist wings of the IWMA over the issue of support for activity on
political party and parliamentary lines. This factional struggle which
resulted in a split in the IWMA in 1872 leading to the formation of the
Federalist IWMA which opposed collaboration with political parties and had
many features associated with the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. The author
fails to recognise that the decline of this organisation was associated
with its move away from being a labour movement into largely a federation
of anarchist groups. The author sees the decline purely due to
organisational deficiencies.
&#8220;Propaganda of the Deed&#8221;
The author then sketches out the character of the anarchist movement in
the decades prior to WWI. He throws some fascinating light on its largely
informal character and its intoxication with &#8220;propaganda of the deed&#8221;
by anarchist groups and the involvement by some sectors with terrorism.
The author graphically shows how this orientation played into the hands of
police infiltration and provocation&#8217;s. However, the author fails to
discuss important ideological reasons for this phenomena. Particularly
following the death of Bakunin, the rise into prominence of the
spontaneist revolution is around the corner current associated with new
anarchist theorists Errico Malatesta and Peter Kropotkin. Practical
activity associated with this version of anarchism oscillated between the
distribution of abstract propaganda and armed/insurrectionary action to
inspire revolutionary action.
&#8220;Revolutionary Syndicalist Upsurge&#8221;
The author goes on to show that the predominance of this version anarchism
was curtailed with the emergence of revolutionary syndicalism and the work
of the anarchist Fernand Pelloutier. His propaganda on behalf of anarchists
becoming involved in the emerging labour movement proved quite influential
following the merger of the Federation Bourses Du Travail with the General
Confederation of Labour (CGT). Most anarchists in France and subsequently
other countries adopted this new orientation but not as part of some
anarchist party building exercise. The author shows in graphic detail that
a minority of those identifying with &#8220;anarchism&#8221; didn&#8217;t adopt the
syndicalist option and composed an &#8220;individualist tendency&#8221;. Some of
these elements became engaged in spectacular criminal activity such as
Ravachol and the Bonnot Gang, encouraged by &#8220;individualist
theoreticians&#8221; discrediting all identifying with the anarchist
label. This illegalist behaviour of elements of the individualist current
led to a major reaction amongst the predominant syndicalist current
resulting in the formation in 1913 of the Anarchist Revolutionary Communist
Federation (FCRA) which condemned individualism, and emphasised syndicalism.
The next major crisis affecting the labour and anarchist movements in
France and elsewhere was the outbreak of WWI in 1914. The author shows how
the outbreak of the war had a disastrous impact on the CGT with its senior
officials being drawn into close collaboration with the French Capitalist
set up and its war effort in the shape of the &#8220;Sacred Union&#8221;. Whilst the
CGT officials refused to call a General Strike to oppose the war, which had
always been CGT policy during its syndicalist/anti-militarist phase. The
author mainly focuses on such factors as the likelihood of savage state
repression against CGT militants in the event of such a General Strike and
the overwhelming influence of jingoism amongst the French working class at
the outbreak of WWI, in explaining this somersault by the top committees of
the CGT. A more important factor which the author fails to adequately
discuss is the predominance of the &#8220;reformist&#8221; current within the CGT prior
to WWI and the failure of syndicalist militants to transform the unions
associated with this reformist tendency into revolutionary bodies through
encouraging participation in militant action.
&#8220;Anarchism in Crisis&#8221;
The successful Bolshevik coup in Russia in 1917 and the subsequent crushing
of the anarchist movement in Russia by the Soviet State caused a
major crisis amongst those in France and elsewhere who adopted &#8220;anarchist
and syndicalist labels&#8221;. The author shows the how the rise of Leninism in
the shape of the newly formed French Communist Party seriously divided the
revolutionary movement and contributed to a disastrous splitting of the
labour movement which caused a severe marginalisation of the anarchist and
syndicalist current. This process was particularly manifest in the CGT.
During the war an opposition to the Sacred Union and the layer of union
officials who supported it grew associated with the Revolutionary
Syndicalist Committees (RSC). The author sketches the role of Pierre
Besnard and a secret coterie of CGT militants involved in the RSC&#8217;s who
played a crucial role in this splitting process. These militants hoped to
takeover the various important committees of the CGT to win the
organisation back to the syndicalist fold by installing revolutionary
militants in these bodies. They helped initiate a major split from the CGT
to form the CGTU (General Confederation of Labour United). Following the
success of the early Communist Party with its cell network taking over the
CGTU and curtailing syndicalist influence, Besnard helped spark a schism in
the CGTU to form the CGTSR (General Confederation Revolutionary
Syndicalist). This final split consisted largely of artisans, members
of small craft unions. The CGTSR remained quite small with at its peak
some 6,000 or so members and declining in size in its final years before
the outbreak of WWII.
&#8220;Arshinov Platform Controversy&#8221;
The most important controversy in the interwar international anarchist
movement focused on the &#8220;Arshinov Platform&#8221;. This controversy and its
subsequent ramifications provides a major focus of this volume. The author
takes a fairly sympathetic view of this initiative. The basic thrust of the
Platform was to inspire the merging of the so called &#8220;anarchist movement&#8221;
in various countries into a non-parliamentary &#8220;party&#8221; to compete with and
out manoeuvre Leninist inspired parties in various arenas.
The author provides quite a bit of new detail in regard to the background
and publication of the Platform. The authors of the Platform were the Group
of Russian Anarchists Abroad a group of Russian anarchist exiles who had
fled the repression of the Bolshevik state. Particularly prominent in the
group and in the drafting of the Platform was Peter Arshinov. Initially
during his revolutionary career he had been a Bolshevik, but had
subsequently moved toward a spontaneous style anarchist position. During
the Russian Revolution of 1917-21, Arshinov had been very active in the
anarchist influenced Makhnovist partisan movement in the Ukraine and had
become its historian. The Platform caused quite a storm of hostile
criticism and debate. In the case of the residual anarchist movement in
the USSR the author shows the disastrous impact of some its members
participation in the controversy. Following a group letter by Moscow
anarchists endorsing the Platform, a major wave of state repression struck
what remained of organised anarchism in the USSR effectively destroying it.
In regard to the author&#8217;s discussion of the international debate concerning
the Platform, there is a major gap. As the author fails to refer to the
particularly effective contribution of George Maximoff, veteran Russian
anarcho-syndicalist exile with his book &#8220;Constructive Anarchism&#8221;. In this
book, Maximoff criticised the Platform&#8217;s very crude and confused economic
and social ideas for revolutionary transformation and emphasised the
Bolshevik and vanguardist tendencies of the Platform. Particularly, the
vanguardist notion of labour organisations being subordinated to the
&#8220;anarchist party&#8221; via its cell structure. Instead of this party building,
Maximoff argues on behalf of fostering anarcho-syndicalist unionism. The
author argues that the failure of the so called &#8220;international anarchist
movement&#8221; of the time to adopt the Platform and hostile criticism received
from its prominent figures, encouraged Arshinov to come out in support of
co-operating with the Stalinist regime and return to the USSR, where he was
killed in the purges of the late 1930&#8217;s.
&#8220;Blood of Spain&#8221;
An anarchist movement which mostly ignored the Platform was the Spanish.
Although one of its largest groupings seems to have been heavily informed
in certain sectors by the vanguardist tendencies implicit in the Platform.
In particular, the Barcelona based FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation). The
author does a fairly shoddy job in discussing the activity of those
associated with this particular organisation. He has little say about the
destructive behaviour of important sections of the FAI in the late 1920&#8217;s
and 30&#8217;s which led to the purging from the CNT (National Confederation of
Labour) - mass anarcho-syndicalist union confederation of more coherent
anarcho-syndicalist tendencies. Such as the Revolutionary Syndicalist
Committees, later known as the BOC (Worker Peasant Bloc) and the
Treintistas. The hysterical atmosphere associated with these purges based
on slanders spread by FAI activists and the massive state repression
affecting the CNT during the insurrectionary cycle encouraged by sectors of
the FAI in the early 1930&#8217;s, must be seen as very hostile for the
consideration and discussion of revolutionary political strategies within
the CNT. The author ignores this unfortunate development and how lacking
such a political strategy a workers/peasants councils state, the CNT and
FAI incorporation in the Popular Front Govt. during the Civil War was a
very strong possibility. The author&#8217;s discussion of the CNT&#8217;s history is
also somewhat inaccurate. He fails to grasp that the CNT when it formed in
1910 was in fact a loose alliance of labour organisations of different
tendencies with those associated with anarchism being just one current. It
was only later during WWI that that anarchist influence became predominant.
&#8220;Anarchist Resurgence in Post WWII France & Renewed Crisis&#8221;
The author provides quite a lot of fascinating information about the
resurgent anarchist and syndicalist movement in France following the end
of WWII. France being one of the few countries which experienced such a
major resurgence. On the level of propaganda, anarchist publications had
relatively large print runs such as the French Anarchist
Federation&#8217;s weekly Le Libertaire with 50,000 copies. The
anarcho-syndicalist union CNT-F had aprox. 40,000 members with bases in
some strategic sectors such as in the auto industry at Citroen. The author
looks at various reasons for the subsequent marginalisation of the
anarchist movement a few years later. A major reason, the author considers
for this decline are internal developments in the French Anarchist
Federation. In particular, a notorious grouping called the OPB
(Thought-Battle Organisation) whose members considered themselves very much
inspired by the Arshinov Program. The author sketches the changing role of
this clandestine group from rearguard charged with combating provocateurs
and spies to a sect with a strong entryist and vanguardist orientation.
This group was able to capture control of the French Anarchist Federation
via Bolshevik style manipulative tactics and changed its name to the FCL
(Libertarian Communist Federation). The author tells the sorry tale of the
FCL and how it sought to imitate the French Communist Party in many
respects, but lacking the resources of the FCP failed to win away its base.
However, in competing with the FCP in regard to the Algerian War it faced
severe State attacks depriving it of premises and faced massive fines. The
increasing Stalinist character of the FCL led also to the departure of
many anarchist militants, who went on to re-form the FAF. After the late
1950&#8217;s, it became the predominant explicit anarchist &#8220;organisation&#8221;. An
important factor which the author fails to adequately discuss in explaining
the decline of French anarchism is the impact of the formation of the FO, a
major split instigated by the CIA in the CGT. With the formation of the
FO, large sections of the CNT-F&#8217;s key bases went over to the new union
centre encouraging strong sect tendencies in anarchist groupings.
&#8220;Post 1968 French Anarchism&#8221;
The author proceeds to discuss the post 1968 development of French
Anarchism. The impression given is of a largely propaganda movement
characterised by a range of different groupings with strong left
subcultural tendencies, with little influence as an industrial
movement. The most significant grouping was the revived French Anarchist
Federation influenced by the &#8220;Syntheticist Anarchism&#8221; of the Russian
anarchist Voline, composed of different tendencies, but having a general
support for syndicalism. The author shows how it has developed significant
propaganda organs and infrastructure.
The other key grouping is the ORA/OCL (Organisation of Revolutionary
Anarchists) heavily influenced by the Arshinov Platform and according to
the author possessing a &#8220;hidden policy leadership&#8221; and generally heavily
affected by the surrounding leftist subculture.
In conclusion, the book under review certainly provides a detailed survey
of the development of anarchist groupings since the 19th Century. However,
the author gives the false impression that the key task of anarchists is
the building of specific anarchist organisations informed by the Arshinov
Program, which the volume provides ample evidence can often take on
features of the Leninist/Stalinist legacy which informs the Left Subculture
in many countries. Rather than assisting workers&#8217; militant self
organisation and facilitating workers&#8217; control directed activity. As the
emancipation of the working class can only be achieved by workers
themselves.
Mark McGuire
*******
********
****** The A-Infos News Service ******
News about and of interest to anarchists
******
COMMANDS: lists@ainfos.ca
REPLIES: a-infos-d@ainfos.ca
HELP: a-infos-org@ainfos.ca
WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca/
INFO: http://www.ainfos.ca/org
-To receive a-infos in one language only mail lists@ainfos.ca the message:
unsubscribe a-infos
subscribe a-infos-X
where X = en, ca, de, fr, etc. (i.e. the language code)